The Mane Squeeze (Pride, #4)by Shelly Laurenston

Growing up on the tough Philly streets, Gwen O'Neill has learned how to fend for herself. But what is she supposed to do with a nice, suburban Jersey boy in the form of a massive Grizzly shifter? Especially one with a rather unhealthy fetish for honey, moose, and . . . uh . . . well, her. Yet despite his menacing ursine growl and four-inch claws, Gwen finds Lachlan "Lock" MacRyrie cute and really sweet. He actually watches out for her, protects her, and unlike the rest of her out-of-control family manages not to morbidly embarrass her. Too bad cats don't believe in forever.At nearly seven feet tall, Lock is used to people responding to him in two ways: screaming and running away. Gwen-half lioness, half tigress, all kick-ass-does neither. She's sexy beyond belief and smart as hell, but she's a born protector. Watching out for the family and friends closest to her but missing the fact that she's being stalked by a murderous enemy who doesn't like hybrids . . . and absolutely hates Gwen. Lock probably shouldn't get involved, but he will. Why? Because this is Gwen-and no matter what the hissing, roaring, drape destroying feline says about not being ready to settle down, Lock knows he can't simply walk away. Not when she's come to mean absolutely everything to him. (goodreads.com)

Curse my obsessive compulsive need to chronicle all books that I read and to have the exact cover photo of the book in my post. Seriously. Because if I could not admit to reading this or showing that insanely embarrassing cover on this blog I would. Thing is if I did that it would bother me so much I'd be obsessing about it and not sleeping. I kid you not. Yes, I know I have issues. Shush.The covers AND the titles of this series are just so, so, eye-roll worthy. I suppose I could handle the titles if the covers were better, but together they just make me cringe.This is a new-to-me series and I know I started at the 4th book. A friend of mine told me to ignore the cover and try the series. She then lent me the book she thought was the best so far. I took one look at the cover when she passed it over to me and immedieately put it back in the bag. Questionable Cover Alert! Gah! The nun in me ran far, far away. I didn't know where to put my HANDS when I was reading this book. The worst part? The half-naked guy was on the BACK cover, too! I had no escape from him. And it ruined my normal habit of placing the book face-down when I was in the bedroom or bathroom. I don't like the people on covers of books staring at me while I'm getting dressed, etc. (We already established I have issues, ok? Move on.) Only when I did that, THERE HE WAS STARING AT ME from the back cover! Pervy book model guy.So what did I think of the book? Well, I gave it props for only getting to the sex until about 200 pages in. I was happily surprised by that. I got to know Gwen and Lock much more before they jumped in the sack and proceeded to have the worst written love scenes in the world. Normally I blush and feel all uncomfortable about the scenes and skim as much as possible (you're reading the blog of a girl who couldn't even look at the anatomy chapter of her highschool biology book because UNMENTIONABLE BOY PARTS were shown.) This was the most unsexy sexy-times I have ever read. The author has some sort of gross obsession with writing about bodily secretions. I KNOW! I was more grossed out than anything and it was so bad that I would read parts of it out to my husband and we'd laugh. LAUGH!  At one point Lock is talking about a near searing of his boy part when placed in the girl part. All I could think of was "If there was that bad of a burning sensation I think they should talk about getting tested for STDs because THAT IS NOT NORMAL! That means ALERT! DOCTOR NEEDED! PRESCRIPTIONS NECESSARY!"Bad love scenes aside (and once they happened, they happened more than I would have liked) I did like the two main (mane... ha!) characters in this novel.  I think jumping in at the 4th book added to some confusion I had about seemingly random tangents with other characters that never really appeared again. These random tangents were also frustratingly vague so I didn't know who was being talked about from one transition to another. Plus they were short little paragraphs inserted into the flow of the story which had me very confused on more than one occasion. I am thinking that the mystery arc of the story continues through the books in more depth, so I am not all that unhappy with my not getting things. Though I will say that writing in a vague manner was common throughout the story. There were way too many he/she pronouns thrown about which made me have to reread passages to see who the hell was being talked about.As for the characters in the story, I liked the idea of shifters rather than were-things. I liked that each creature was said to have the characteristics of the animal they shifted into. This made reading about Lock very amusing with his love of honey and berries and his natural curiosity. I have to say the author lost me when she threw in his constant "playing with his toes" to relax himself. A visual of a 7-foot tall man, naked, on his back with his legs in the air playing with his toes and rolling around was NOT a visual I needed. Ugh.The book is humourous though and the character dialogue is fun. I hesitate to suggest that this book didn't add much to the forwarding of the paranormal mystery plot though, because that was barely touched upon. For all I know all the books are like this. I will give the series the benefit of the doubt though because I did jump in at book 4. ;)Will I read the other books now? I am leaving that decision up to my friend. If she drops off another in the series, I will give it a try. I already know there are characters in the series that I instantly didn't like and the other books have them as a larger focus. Maybe reading about them in larger doses will make me rethink my opinions of them. There were also other characters that I loved so reading more about them in other books would be fun.This wasn't a horrible read, except for some parts, and it's pretty light and fluffy (at least this book was). I still feel really sheepish to admit I read something with this cover and title though. =PPride series

1. The Mane Event
2. The Beast in Him
3. The Mane Attraction
4. The Mane Squeeze
5. Beast Behaving Badly
6. Big Bad Beast
7. Bear Meets Girl - 2012